Reviewed by Robyn Ludwig

Now that the high-brow Oscar contenders have come and gone, what gets dragged out of studio coffers these days are films like Assault on Precinct 13 - an unabashedly violent and totally unnecessary remake of the slightly superior 1976 John Carpenter flick of the same name. This time around, Ethan Hawke, in a startling departure from his thoughtful performance in After Sunset, plays pill-popping drunk Sergeant Jake Roenick, demoted to a desk job at Precinct 13 after an undercover sting turns tragic, resulting in the death of his two partners and leaving him with a crippling case of post traumatic stress disorder. 

Just hours before the clock strikes midnight on December 31 – coincidentally the night before the closure of the nearly deserted Precinct 13 - a snow storm blankets Detroit, forcing a busload of convicts to divert to the station to wait out the blizzard. The inmates include a conman named Smiley (rapper Ja-Rule), wise-cracking coke-head Beck (John Leguizamo) and ruthless mob kingpin Marion Bishop (Fishburne).  When assassins descend on the police station looking for Bishop, the group must place their trust in an officer with a fragile psyche, put aside their differences, and defend themselves against impossible odds. If you saw the trailers, then you already know the twist: the attackers are corrupt cops desperate to gut Bishop before he can spill his guts to investigators.  

As far as formulaic genre pictures go, Assault on Precinct 13 could be much worse. Director Jean-François Richet infuses the proceedings with enough blood-spattered energy to hold our attention, and the supporting cast is surprisingly strong, in particular Maria Bello as a neurotic psychologist and potential love interest, and Gabriel Byrne as Detective Marcus Duvall, the malevolent leader of the blitzkrieg.  Unfortunately the mind-numbingly high body count in Assault matches the number of police-movie clichés tossed in: standard-issue criminal stereotypes, a veteran officer with only one day left before retirement, characters exchanging mirthful quips in between exchanges of gun fire, coincidences piled on top of coincidences, and a final showdown at sunrise in a wooded glen that appears out of nowhere. Really the only one who escapes unscathed from this gory hackneyed mess is Mark Wahlberg - who was originally offered the lead role but wisely turned it down.